"A short list of why shipping containers are not a “solution” for mass housing"

This is a particularly colorful version from OVA Studio (for a hotel)
This is a particularly colorful version from OVA Studio (for a hotel)

What’s wrong with shipping container buildings? Nothing, if they’re used for the right purpose. For a temporary facility, where an owner desires the shipping container aesthetic, they can be a good fit (look, I’ve even done a container project!). For sites where on-site construction is not feasible or desirable, fitting a container out in the factory can be a sensible option, even though you’ll still have to do things like pour foundations on site. It probably won’t save you any money over conventional construction (and very well might cost more), but it can solve some other problems.

The place where containers really don’t make any sense is housing. I know you’ve seen all the proposals, often done with an humanitarian angle (building slum housing, housing for refugees etc) that promise a factory-built “solution” to the housing “problem” but often positioned as a luxury product as well.

This post on ArchDaily got me started on a Twitter rant about the unsuitability of containers for these projects, and the larger trend of online design publications not bothering to ask any questions and run these press releases as “news”. Not to mention the architects themselves presenting this idea as a feasible solution to a major problem.

This is the project that got me started, a recent competition winner by GA Designs, which proposes it as a solution to slum housing conditions in India. There are a number of glaring problems with this idea (some of which Llyod Alter takes on in a post on Treehugger) ...